“Blood Lust and Beignets”

“Blood Lust and Beignets”

What do Voodoo, Vampires and Dancing with the Dead have in common?

Well that’s easy. It’s the big easy: New Orleans. And Bloody Mary Voodoo Queen has the answers. She and Father Sebastian, renown Fangsmith, Impressario and author have explored those connections for twenty years.

But there is more to it than just that! Why do you think television shows like FX’s American Horror Story or True Blood and famous authors all dance the voodoo and vampire second line? According to Bloody Mary:

” The Mysticism supernaturally embedded here is a raw creative force molded by local artisans throughout the ages. Voodoo and vampires are organic fixtures found left and right in New Orleans. Today there is even a Voodoo museum and a Vampire boutique…” She continues

“Then there are my social history observations to add into account. In the 18th and 19th centuries there was a widespread fear of vampires. The people of New Orleans sought help of voodoo for protection, especially during plague times.

The dead revisit in many ways in New Orleans. By Bloody Mary

When the 20th century rolled around, a fear of Voodoo arose and a budding love affair with the vampire took root. In the 21st century we developed a more balanced view of both.

Our intrigue and clandestine affair with voodoo and vampires has grown exponentially over the years. Tours, books, movies and television series have all grabbed New Orleans by the horns and turned to her for a fix of blood lust and beignets. Bloody Mary worries as:

“Artists slather their red ink haphazardly around our famous people and places making it increasingly more difficult for the public to separate fact from fiction. These subjects bleed freely into each other, but not by free will.”

The Vampires Impresario Father Sebastian

Public figures like Bloody Mary and Father Sebastian try to show a truer side to their respective vocations today.

Which brings us to what Bloody Mary calls “Legend lies.” Exalted ancestor Marie Laveau,Voodoo Queen, and our own Vampiric Madame Lalaurie have been misrepresented in many ways over the years. But now a resurrection of their fictions rises again in Season 3, Coven, of FX’s AHS. They painted our dear Marie Laveau as a baby killer and a murderer, Voodoo spirit Papa Labas as the devil, and the rich, beautiful cougar Delphine Lalaurie incorrectly in Kathy Bates.

Bloody Mary was even hired by AHS to do a set cleansing/exorcism and a few ritual training films. (Unfortunately, it was after the fact, when the negative paranormal activity had already erupted.) She calmed it all down but reminds you: Call prior, not after. Bloody Mary emphasizes:

“You cannot take two of the most intense spirits in town and twist their stories for your own purposes without expecting repercussion!”

Madame Lalaurie may have been depicted as blood thirsty in AHS, but she is expertly argued as a Vampyra in Bloody Mary’s new release: Bloody Mary’s Guide to Hauntings, Horrors and Dancing with the Dead. Delphine Lalaurie was a creole aristocrat and socialite who tortured her slaves, many it seems, to the death. This was highly illegal but her shrewd mind and ” her love potion-perfumed silk purse silk purse conjured with the strongest of pheromones: wealth, beauty and power”

[1] had her literally get away with murders. Delphine Lalaurie is a now world famous New Orleans ghost but Bloody Mary shows us more: “In the flesh and spirit, Delphine is the perfect Vampyra.”[2]

Many believe there are two types of vampires: mortal and immortal. They are divided further, but let’s explore what mortal vampire is believed to be.

Drinks blood for a medical reason

Drinks blood for sexual arousal

Drinks blood for increased psychic or magical energy

Drinks blood hoping for alchemical immortality

Or All the above

Lalaurie falls into the “all of the above” category but her work continues since she still feeds as spirit too.

Her psychic vampire tendencies are proved in the listless family surrounding the ever exuberant elder Delphine in life and afterlife. Then there is the simple serial-killer, murderess psychopathic side to her too. She has no remorse. Even the fictional Lalaurie that Ms. Bates became, had no remorse even whilst in the moment of smearing newborn baby blood on her face.

“Blood Lust and Beignets” Photo By Bloody Mary

Delphine’s life has an uncanny parallel to another known historic Vampyra, Elizabeth Bathory. This 18th century Hungarian countess was known for her infamous blood baths in the Sanguine fluids of young maidens. Delphine substituted slaves for peasants, whether she bathed in their blood literally is unknown but… “Blood baths of one kind or another did actually occur within the walls of 1140 Royal street.” [3]

There is a literal bloodcurdling connection discovered in #bloodymarysguide. A little known aspect of the Lalaurie vampire connection surfaced suggesting that Lalaurie died via “perspiring blood.”[4] In the 19th century this Hemophilia-type disease was heavily associated with vampires. Its’ remedy was the drinking of blood. Victims could cry tears of blood and sweat blood. The real Lalaurie would not have had to paint any blood on her alabaster skin as actress Kathy Bates did. Delphine may have consumed blood one moment, only to have it creep out of her pores and blood streak her face at another.

And the final nail in the coffin is that there is no coffin with the remains of Delphine Lalaurie to be found. There is record of Delphine being disinterred from her burial spot in Montmarte Cemetery in Paris (where she also haunts) Eventually she was shipped back to

Madame Lalaurie in Paris, by Bloody Mary

The Madame Lalaurie death plaque .Times Picayune

her native soil, but there is No actual record of her being reinterred in a family tomb in St Louis Cemetery No. 1 or elsewhere – to date. The Times Picayune newspaper reporters, Biographer Carolyn Long and occult expert and author Bloody Mary have searched and researched for her final resting place to no avail . All that is truly left behind is legends, horrors and a rusty old copper plaque.

Bloody Mary’s tours of the undead has always combined les vampires with voodoo and spirits; she believes that trilogy is too interconnected in New Orleans history to segregate. She explains,

“Voodoos were called in to magically protect homes, especially in the 19th century when New Orleans was the crown jewel of death, having the highest mortality rate in North America. Unexplained deaths in epidemic proportions created a perceived history populated with hungry vampires and other invisible suckuers to blame. The Voodoos were called in to destroy vampires and devouring ghosts. Voodoo protected the population from werewolves (Loup Garou) too.”

In 19th century New Orleans vampire fashion, vampire bars and vampire theatre thrived in this little hamlet once known as the Paris of the new world . Some people may still drink Blood in New Orleans , Vampires Live Amongst us, and Voodoo absolutely lives here. The voodoos and the vampires, the witches and the warlocks, the Catholics and the Protestantsall try to get along, but there is still a large share of backbiting present clutched in the spiny claws of the crescent city lurking in the shadows.

[4] Ibid; Hematidrosis is the name of this hemophilia-type disease, known to mainly effect high strung females. Thought to be of a supernatural origin, it was also referred to as hysteric-stigmata or ghost spell.